vimes

I wonder what kind of speech you prepare when you get an award from an institution you don't really respect.

The only thing that intrigues me about The Hobbit movie is the slight changes in the art direction that I noticed from the one trailer I saw: the movie looked slightly more cartoony, with a more contrasted lighting and coarser textures and details on the props, costumes and make up. Everything looked a bit 'fatter'. I'm interested in checking if the tone of the movie follow a similar trend: The Hobbit book is, after all, a simpler story, clearly aimed at a younger audience that LotR - and it doesn't really feel like serious business. I'm also interested in seeing how Jackson/DelToro dealt with integrating the cross-over characters - if there is indeed a significant difference of tone from LotR.

In the male friend version of that, 'her small tits' gives way to 'his small penis'. They probably believe that's equal opportunity. FAN-fucking-TASTIC.

The Cave looks really good, but I'm not super stoked about the Cave narration; even more so if it's throughout the whole thing.

Don't ask me why; it's probably the buzz surrounding "Sir, you are being hunted" getting to me.

.You're right, in hindsight, that was a pretty simplistic cost evaluation. So yes, so far, it's not a lot of money; but I'd say being able to cover a third of the cost isn't a negligible side-effect either. Anyway, I didn't have any hesitation in paying for this; because it felt like championing creativity, boldness and openness of process and I think the industry need more of those.

They raised 140 000USD in one week. Let's say a 25% of that goes to Humble Bundle and charity(default split on the main page), so 105 000 remains. From what I saw in the first meeting live-streams, there are about 50 people involved in AF full-time; which means 2100 USD raised per people involved. Doing a very rough estimation from Gamasutra 2012 survey, a 'Video game' employee earns on average 80 000 US per year which is about 1500 USD per week. So, all in all, in one week, the raised enough to cover 70% of the direct cost of Amnesia Fortnight. I'm sure it's not the core reason for which they decided to go with that format, but I wouldn't say that it's 'not a lot of money'. It will probably pay for itself in the end, which is brilliant. In any case, even if there was no Humble Bundle, AF would still be one of the raddest initiative. I wish more studio would join... wouldn't it be great if there was a simultaneous AF across the industry?

That's a cool Boulet.

I clearly have a special interest in this but out of curiosity, have any fellow Thumbs been far enough to unlock the naval missions?

I voted for both The Birch and Black Lake because they are quiet pitches with nice art direction being helmed by what looks like quite people. I don't think they are bland; I just think they are not as bombastic as others. And I could definitely use some more games made by quiet people.

Like I said before, this is an important game, but there really needs to be some kind of tool to reconstruct lost savegames: I just switched from win7 to 8 and my existing state is being ignored. It's been since last week that I'm trying more or less random stuff to make it work. I don't think I want to see the last episode with a randomly generated state.

Bragging & Fighting was a day one perch'; I fell in love with the pitch.l also voted for The Birch but I wish The Birch and Black Lake would merge since their atmosphere and art feel so damn close.I'm still wondering about my two other votes but it's a race (in no order) between Bad Golf, The Knockover, SpaceBase,Cloud Prix and Silent but Deadly are in good place. Also want to vote for Flock and Shine.Mmm, decision, decision.I'm not kidding or exaggerating, but DoubleFine feels like a warm beacon of light in game development right now.

*messed up quote/edit*

Absolution might be bad but I completely disagree with that statement. I even think that IO managed something amazing with Blood Money: they created the perfect incarnation of a genre they were the only ones exploring.

I read this yesterday afternoon since I couldn't get my hand on Evidence of Things Unseen: I liked it a lot and I think it's a wonderful book. Unexpected isn't it? A particular questions ticks me though: how much of Nick's post-factum bitterness taints his depiction of the events he recounts? Because really, even at the beginning of the book, when Nick says he was most open-minded1, the protagonists are not given any sort of redeemable values: for instance, Daisy isn't depicted as less of a completely superficial and unconsequential person during their first encounter than when he meets her last. On the first page, he said that the events made him loose his tolerance; so, are Tom, Daisy and Baker given a fair trial or not? On an unrelated note: reading two books in parallel can mess with your head: I read this as a distraction from Winds in the Willow and was horrified when my mind decided to merge Nick with Mole, Gatsby with Rat and Tom with Toad. It shook off after 2 hours of reading; but still, it was strange while it lasted. 1 though Nick didn't appear to me so much open-minded as completely detached and uninvolved: he sticks and gets dragged around not only to clench his curiosity torward Gatsby but because, after his work is done, he's got nothing else to do.

Is there a reason for the podcast theme to appear at 41:38?

Really? Do you have any particular sequence in mind? The is in the middle and I found it brilliantly edited.

Made it as christmassy as I could. Looks like Scrooge on a rooftop now.

I don't know if it's true for all interwar movies but the few Renoirs I've watched have aged really well. Actually, from the above selection, the only element that sometimes aged badly is the soundtrack; and god, when it's extreme, it's truly distracting. French movie from the 60s-70s are notable for suffering from that - Le Samurai for instance.

Being away from work because of comp' time then flu; I gathered a few 'Best Movie Ever' lists from the interweb and extracted two handfuls of films I had never watched or heard of. Interestingly (or not), nearly all of them are in the Criterion collections. So far: Tokyo Story: a great and depressing movie about the growing gap with our parents, the disappointments of life and loneliness. It paints a couple of characters in broad strokes and the elder cast's acting style get some used to; but the most of the personalities are painfully believable and there's a good chance it will strike home somehow. I think I enjoyed mostly the care with witch Ozu shouldered the intricately nested geometry of Japanese interiors to re-frame nearly all situations and the way he created succession of those shots to build a fragmented and sometimes conflicting sense of space. This camera work and the delightful slow pacing have been haunting me ever since. Paths of Glory: excellent. Except for the characterization of General Mireau, each character and actors deliver hugely (Timothy Carey is brilliant). The very end was a bit out of place in what is a movie with very little hope for redemption, but everything else is grand. I particularly love [spoilers]the sequence from the moment they fetch the prisoner to the actual execution.[/spoilers] Raging Bull: I couldn't connect at all with that movie: I can see LaMotta is a pathetic being,but I couldn't build any sympathy or empathy toward a character whose second scene depict him on the verge of hitting his wife over how well a steak is cooked... There was no secondary character (like in Goodfellas) and no intellectual angle (like in Taxi Driver for instance) that I could cling onto to 'get' this character. This story isn't talking to me I guess. His Girl Friday: beside the exhilarating but exhausting scenes between Grant and Russell (this is turbo boost rapid fire dialog), this movie is also a gem: the dialogs are fluid, naturalistic, with distinct overlaps between lines and organically timed hesitation and strutter. And the most amazing is that each character's voice survive that treatment: it's as if Sorkin dialog had taken human form and diversified. The structure of the movie is great on its own : the accumulation of divergence in the plot results in a damn funny movie that kept me the edge of my seat - which is pretty rare for a comedy. I particularly loved the first scenes inside the journalists retreat and their confrontation with a witness they purposely portrayed badly. I'm on the fence about the ending though: I can't tell if it's misogynist or just plain cynical about people and their jobs. Kind Hearts & Coronets: Loved it too, very well written, with some great performances by the secondary cast (the amount of detail in the hand gesture of Miles Malleson in the opening scene is amazing) and also the leads. It's really remarkable to see a movie not let go of its point, its tone or its cynicism and still make you root for its main character. It's also worth watching for witnessing Alec Guiness play 12 different character successfully. Harold and Maude: if this isn't the original template for all Wes Anderson movie, I don't know what is. It's fresher and less contrived though and thus appealed to me more. It has its limits - there's a lot of useless posing and the otherwise nice soundtrack often drowns the movie - but it's still pretty unique. It's also pretty admirable that the actors manage to make these characters and their relationship believable. Next: The Life of Others, The Bicycle Thief and The Life & Death of Colonel Blimp.

I've come to this thread the past 6 evenings to try and post something that wouldn't be a 3000 word brain dump about what bothers me in Telegraph Avenue. 6 times I failed, but finally, today, I think I've zoomed-in on the core issue that ramify to all others. So it's only 800 words or so. I think Chambon shouldn't have made Telegraph Avenue a classic novel. You see, I think the narrative and thematic content of the book land itself perfectly to a collection of Brokeland stories. The story of an undertaker settling an affair from his black panther youth, of a bi-ethnic midwife team facing racism issues, of a retired blues-man dealing with the wrong priority of his son-figure, that of the deluded ambition of 2 ex-Blaxploitation stars emerging from years of drugs, of a retired black NFL star facing opposition to his Vinyl chain, etc... The roots of the book, the undercurrents moving the characters would still be there and distinguishable, albeit peppered across, constructing a tableau by touches.1 But to gel these elements into a monolithic structure where all characters need to revolve around one or two plot points? Where all the threads need to finally gather? I don't think it could ever make sense or even bring anything to the table. In the book, Chambon fails: the dreamcatcher-like scaffolding that he built is at best artificial (everybody's end up at Master Jew's secret room, everybody's a cinephile ) and at worst laughably improbable (a Shonen Jump-reading Samoan bodyguard talking on a blimp about Hari Seldon, really?). A further consequence of this forced aggregation is that it diminishes the readability and efficiency of Chambon's style2: for most of the book I had issues distinguishing the voices of certain pairs of characters - most notably Archy/Nat and Gwen/Aviva. Similarly, the point of view adopted seemed blurry at times: is the narrator describing what the characters think they are themselves feeling/thinking? Or does he describes what they actually feel? Or is he describing what he himself thinks they think and feel? There again, having this ambiguity or discrepancy would definitely be a plus in separated short stories with their own narrative rules, but in a novel, it came off as indecisive and 'loose' writing. As for the references, I ignored them with irritation3: they could be completely bullshit for all I care, I don't think it would change my experience of the story or understanding of the characters.4 STILL, like I said, most of the stories are great independently: most of them contain a sequence or an idea that shines through as "This is fucking worth it". Some of them are even genius: this is the first time in a long time that I bookmark passages for further references.5 I am particularly in awe of Chambon's way of having his characters reminisce about habits they once witnessed but do not necessarily submit themselves to 6. I also love the imagery he can create with a rich but very clear vocabulary. I was also fascinated by Titus and Julie relationship, since it's the most obfuscated and alien one. The only thing that bugged me in the content is that none the elder character isn't a legend of some kind (Luther, Chan,Mr Jones, Mrs Jew). I would have liked some counterpoint to their mythical stories or figure, characters more grounded in reality - maybe going to Archy's and Nat's mothers, who were never really given enough space. Anyway, as a summary: this is a 400+-page book with 200+ pages of structural fat which are detrimental to its grace, its internal consistency and its impact; but there are quite a few excerpts I consider masterpieces. Now, I can finally listen to the fucking 'cast! Also I'm trying to make my post shorter; but when I fail - like here - I'm resorting to footnotes. Please tell me if it's useful or completely douchy. 1 The bird-view chapter - which was great but didn't need the obnoxious 'comma only' scheme to give the feeling of a plan-séquence - would be an exception to that, a nexus for the rest of the collection. 2 Take that part with a pinch of salt: this might be because I'm not a native speaker or because this is my first Chambon. 3 I will be checking Brokeland style if it does exist, but the way the other references were dispensed didn't entice me AT ALL to check them out - and I consider myself curious by nature. 4 However I'd be interested in the opinion of someone who could actually get most of these: did they complement or contrast the sequence they are part of? 5 Archy and Jones discussion from p128 to 137 - Jones' internal reaction to his discovery of Titus homosexuality is excellent. Scrap that, these 10 pages are a masterpiece. Terraforming vs. Pantropy as applied to black immigrants. p - whatever, I lost the bookmark Mr. Jones on the mask he wore. p - same here, post-it are unreliable. 6 'Useless' by James Joyce - segment about Nat's father p114 & 115 Nat recollection of his Stepmother rule over the Kitchen p185 - 187

Convinced and bought.

Way better!

Arg, I irrationally dislike early GOTY thread. Let's wait for January 2013, dammit!

Just my two cents: you should probably have more contrast between the background tiled image and the content in the dark blue frame because it hurts my eyes a bit. The content is interesting though.